Sweet sorghum has potential as a food crop and for ethanol production.
Sweet Sorghum
Objectives:
The long-term objective is to improve sweet sorghum varieties for increased production and profitability.
Investigate the genetics of high sugar concentration in plant introduction materials.
Select a high yielding genotype with early maturity, disease resistance, lodging resistance, and high juice brix.
Continue purifying and making available seed of released and heirloom sweet sorghum varieties.
Evaluate the sugar content and juice yield from sweet sorghum varieties in Kentucky related to ethanol production.
Calculate the fermentation efficiency of sweet sorghum juice.
Measure the cellulose, hemicellulose and lignin content of the bagasse to evaluate it potential as a feedstock for pretreatment and enzyme saccarification.
Investigate various methods to safely store sorghum juice up to twelve months before fermentation.
Estimate the economics of sugar production and juice storage using an engineering economic model.
Sweet sorghum improvement
Utilization of sweet sorghum as a feedstock for ethanol production
The overall objective is to evaluate the feasibility of using sweet sorghum as a feedstock for ethanol plants. The objective will be accomplished using the following specific tasks:
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This site was last updated on March 4, 2011
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